


Drowned in Moonlight

by Demmora



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternative Lives, Death, Force Visions, Gen, I've been processing this for quite a while, The Living Force, and I decided that the canon will never pass muster, cause fic is cheaper than therapy, cause sometimes you just need to make yourself cry at 3 in the morning into your keyboard, emotional hand grenade in 3...2...1, ever since Carrie died, so if you don't want to read about everyone's fave General passing peacefully into the living force, you may wish to move along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-05 14:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14046132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demmora/pseuds/Demmora
Summary: It's not death that's the problem, it's how you die that's the worrying part. That's what Han always said. Had said. Luke too, in his own slightly more convoluted way. Closing his eyes a thousand times over the years and murmuring the learned phrase that transcended fear and mortality with a simple mantra like utterance, until the day it was finally true.I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me, I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me...For Leia, dying had never been hard. It was second nature, to burn to ash over and over in the ruins of her life, her hopes. Her love. No. For Leia the real trick had been living.





	Drowned in Moonlight

Of all the things to finally catch up with her, against all the odds, it's old age that's going to get her. There's something endlessly funny about that, or there would be if she still had the strength to laugh. Instead she finds herself adrift in a sea of kind, sad faces peering down at her. There's something oddly familiar about it, but she can't quite put her finger on it. Of course she hasn't been able to put her finger on anything for a while now, not since they put her in this bed. 

It's not death that's the problem, it's how you die that's the worrying part. That's what Han always said. Had said. Luke too, in his own slightly more convoluted way. Closing his eyes a thousand times in the face of mortal danger over the years and murmuring the learned phrase that transcended fear and mortality with a simple mantra like utterance, until the day it was finally true.

_I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me, I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me..._

For Leia, dying had never been hard. It was second nature, to burn to ash over and over in the ruins of her life, her hopes. Her loves. No. For Leia the real trick had been to go on living. And now that her time has finally come, it's decisively underwhelming. Somehow she'd expected something more, some one last thing to fight. But as it turns out, you can't fight time. Not forever. Though Force knows she'd tried. Now she's just trying to make it through the night to see another dawn.

Something beeps, loud and insistent by her head, and is promptly silenced, the room falling back into the artificial quietness of people trying very hard not to make a sound. She wishes someone would laugh. The silence leaves her feeling cut adrift, like an ancient starship left to float out among the stars...

"They used to do that, you know," she says aloud, or maybe she doesn't, it's hard to tell what's real and what's not anymore, "they used to...send ships out and burn...burn them. On the water..."

"Did they?" Says a familiar voice, and she knows she knows the face, knows she loves it heart and soul, even if their name is currently lost to her. "What else did they used to do, General?"

But the moment is already fading and she slips away again, feels herself ebb and flow between worlds, like the tide on a planet that no longer exists, azure against clear blue skies and white snow capped mountains... _nothing is ever truly gone...you know that.._

"Luke..."

"She’s babbling again, should we up the sedative?”

“No, leave her be.”

“But M’am, she’s talking to people who aren’t here...”

“Who says they’re not?”

She knows that voice. It makes her smile, even as the tears slide silently down her cheek from behind closed eyes. It’s fierce and strong, unafraid of its own strength. Good. She’ll need that fire to survive what has to come, they all will. Their Sword of the Jedi. 

She frowns. No, that’s not right...

_Another vision swims into place, another life another time, another name and her chest hitches on a sob..._

“Jaina...”

“Who's she asking for?”

“I don’t know...I’ve never heard of a Jaina...General, can you hear me? Leia?”

She cannot open her eyes anymore, but she grips the hand that slips into hers. _In another life you were mine, in another life..._

 _“_ I think she’s only dreaming...you go, I’ll stay with her.”

_Rey..._

The girl burns like an inferno in her mind’s eye, bright and strong. Stronger than the Skywalker curse. She is free of that at least. In this life.

_I’m here, Leia, I’m here...I’m not going anywhere_

But oh, Leia knows how untrue that is. She can see it all, in this place between waking and death. All that has been, all that might be, and all that could have been...

Fresh tears roll down her cheeks, as much from joy as sorrow.

The weight of the bed shifts beside her, though she knows no one is there. It's a ghost, a memory from another life that doesn't belong to her, but still she takes comfort in knowing it is a memory of love, the weight of a child's head settling in her lap, a splay of dark curls and even darker eyes peering up at her across the strata of time and space. Her boy,  _their boy_. Always their boy, even if the name is not always the same

_Mom..._

_Shhh, I'm here,_  she thinks, _mother will always be here..._

"How is she?"

"Fading...but...happy. I think."

"You don't have to stay here alone, you know."

"I know."

"Someone else can sit up and watch..."

"I know."

"I'm just trying to help."

"I know, Poe. I know."

"I always thought she'd be there, you know..I never actually thought..."

It sounds so small, not at all like the newly elected leader of the Reformed New Republic, so full of fire and conviction. And hope, dear stars so much hope—hope that tomorrow might be better. And if not tomorrow then maybe the next, or the next after that or the next after that.

Another hand joins the one already holding hers, but it's distant, melting away like the first flutter of snow before it reaches the ground. She wants them to know it will all be okay, to clutch them close one last time and tell them to fight with all their might for what they know is right, for themselves—for each other. The way the others did for her, until they could not. And even then they'd always been there, like the light of distant stars to which she set her rudder, guiding her home. _Home..._

_Leia..._

Someone is calling her name, but she's not sure from where. There's light here now, in this place. For a moment she thinks the dawn might finally have come, but then dismisses it as fancy. There's only one kind of light that could shine like this through darkness.

_Leia, can you hear me?  Leia...  
_

_I hear you_ , she thinks, letting the light swell and rise like an unstoppable tide, filling her up from the inside, and breathing out moonlight in its wake _._ _And I know._

 


End file.
